Economic Sector

The entire customs sector will pilot information exchange and expand the round-the-clock electronic tax payment and customs clearance to the national scale from November 2017. What will taxpayers do? According to the project roadmap, in July 2017, taxpayers will have to provide their digital signature information to VNACCS; register for around-the-clock debit authorisation for tax and customs clearance services; and register with commercial banks where accounts are opened and give them to customs offices in July 2017

These regulations are provided at Decision 2082/QD-TCHQ signed by Deputy General Director of Customs Nguyen Duong Thai on June 21, 2017 on approval of the project “24/7 electronic tax payment via banks and customs clearance”. This important project of the General Department of Vietnam Customs supports businesses to pay money directly to electronic customs payment gateway in 2017. This means that customs offices will directly assist businesses to prepare payment documents from original records to avoid errors and omissions in money transfer procedures.

The objective of the project is to maximise taxpayers' convenience at any time, in any place and on any means; minimise payment in cash; make sure that payment information is liquidated timely and accurately to reduce tax payment time; clearing commodities right after tax payment made to reduce the time required to complete customs procedures on exports and imports to the average of ASEAN-4 countries as expected by the Government.

The project also allows taxpayers to make tax payment statements on the Customs E-Payment Gateway at any time, in any place and by any means connected to the internet. Tax payment results are notified by banks.

According to representatives from the Department of Export-Import Taxes, which drafted the project, the around-the-clock tax payment via banks and customs clearance project aims to tackle problems in electronic tax payment in the past time and further simplify administrative procedures, reduce the customs clearance time, and reduce time and costs for customs offices and businesses.

The project deployment will not entail additional administrative procedures while taxpayers will have an extra way to pay taxes where they can choose the time, method and place of paying taxes instead of going to commercial banks or using internet banking services.

According to the Department of Import-Export Tax, this form will ensure the integrity of taxpayer information in the exchanging process on the system. Particularly, it will remove restrictions on payment information fields when it exchanges one or more payment forms via banks and remove limitations in transaction time with commercial banks. For their parts, customs offices will also guarantee administration security, simplify tax collection and remittance processes and accurately deduct tax debts right after businesses pay taxes, terminate wrong coercion and avoid adjustments to payment documents. As for commercial banks which coordinate in tax collection with the General Department of Vietnam Customs, this form of tax collection will help them develop and improve payment services for customers, attract more potential customers, and limit false information.